October 2015 NPD: Xbox One Won the Month, Despite PS4 Price Drop

Even with the PlayStation 4’s price drop to $349.99 on October 9, the Xbox One was the #1 selling console in the United States in October 2015, according to NPD data reported by Microsoft.

In a statement from Xbox Marketing Boss Mike Nichols, Halo 5: Guardians was highlighted as one of the big reasons for the victory, with Xbox One growth up 81% compared to October 2014. They also saw “record Xbox Live usage for October.”

Sony also issued a statement after the NPD report, saying they are “truly humbled by the success of the PlayStation 4,” and thanked fans “for making PlayStation 4 the top selling console globally.”

So far in 2015 in the US, the PS4 has won every single month except for April 2015 and October 2015.

As for the rest of the NPD report, total video game retail sales were up 2% over October 2014, finishing at $805.9 million. For a breakdown, hardware dropped by less than 1% to $270.3 million, software sales (including PC) were down 5% to $341.9 million, and accessories were up 18% to $197.9 million.

NPD analyst Liam Callahan discussed hardware sales:

Hardware dollar sales were flat from October 2014 to October 2015, with sales totaling $270.3MM. Console sales were up 3 per cent as portables declined 27 per cent due to difficult comparisons to October 2014 sales.

In other data, last generation console sales fell 63%, current generation consoles were up 62%, bundles made up 96% of October’s console purchases (up 53%), new software dollar sales fell by 4%, and the accessories growth was thanks to a record month for video game point/subscription cards, as well as a gamepad sales increase of 29% thanks to the new Xbox One Elite controller.